


pain is the price you pay

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Air-Clearing, Angst, Canon Speculation, Comfort, F/M, Important Convos, Minor Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 09:17:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10896309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: ficlet inspired by the 4x22 sneak peek. only the first couple of lines reference it so i wouldn’t consider it spoilery but avoid as you wish.





	pain is the price you pay

It feels like a perverse mirror of a conversation long ago, in the lab, after they’d vanquished the universe’s distance between them only to find a seemingly insurmountable expanse of unspoken sadness and misplaced anger and confusion and need remained, when Fitz had asked, tremblingly, whether she loved Will, moments before their first kiss.

“Do you want to kill her?” she repeats, knowing her monotone betrays more than it hides.

He’s not looking at her, still – his hands are on his hips and he’s sucked his lower lip in like he’s mulling a problem through and he’s still not looking at her, but at the floor. The eyes are windows, and he doesn’t want her looking in.

“I don’t know,” he admits at last, and clarifies bitterly, “Not that anyone should trust my judgment, but I’m of two minds about it, quite literally.”

He glances at her, clearly to catch her reaction, but her smile only seems to throw him off. “That’s _good_ , Fitz,” she assures him, denying the tears that want to fill her eyes. “A lesser man wouldn’t even question it—”

“So which one is the lesser man?” he cuts her off. “Which version of me is worse?”

 _The one that doesn’t love me,_ she thinks, hating herself for it. “Do you remember how I wanted to kill Ward? How I tried? How I would have done it if not for Bakshi? How I _killed_ Bakshi?”

“Yeah. As I recall, you did that for me. Apparently I bring out the best in people.”

He sits heavily on the edge of the desk, back to her, but she will not be deterred. Not after… _everything._

“I didn’t do it for you,” she refutes fiercely, leaving the tablet behind -- saving the world can wait; she needs to save _her_ world – and circling the desk to face him, crowding his space a bit so he’ll have to disturb her if he wants to get away. “I did it for myself, because Ward nearly took you away from me and he tried to kill us both and it was a rage I’ve never otherwise known. And you didn’t judge me for that.”

“It’s different,” he mutters.

“I wish you would let me in, Fitz,” she whispers, reaching out to touch his arms where they’re crossed over his chest. He lets them fall to his sides and her hand drops away.

“I can’t do that, Jemma, you know that.” He avoids saying her name now, too, as if he doesn’t feel he has a right to it, and hearing his accent curl around it nearly paralyzes her with longing. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Not fair? Not _fair?_ ” She’s getting too worked up now, and she knows she’s being selfish even as she tries to help him but he’s letting the bloody cosmos win again. “You decided to give me the last breath of oxygen and gave yourself over to certain death without letting _me_ choose. You took care of me even when I’d broken your heart -- You insisted upon rescuing a man who’d been _integral_ to the breaking of your heart even when I protested that it was tearing us apart. Not fair? _That’s_ not fair. But when you love someone, you accept the pain. You share it. I want it to be as much my burden as yours, Fitz, because I love you and I thought—”

She hesitates. Even with him, this is an honesty she fears. But if she expects him to stop hiding behind self-loathing and doubt and half-truths, she needs to do the same.

“You did terrible things in the Framework.” He looks up at her in astonishment, but she presses on. “No one would deny that. We’ll all be living with the scars of our actions for the rest of our lives. But what hurt me – what hurt me the _most_ – was when you said I meant nothing to you.”

His whole face contorts with the memory of it. His right hand convulses, like he can still feel the gun.

“I heard what you said to her, in the containment module, but I can’t help thinking – I’ve never doubted it, not since the moment we met, but… Between your guilt and your lingering feelings for her and – Well, maybe you were right. Maybe I do mean nothi—”

“ _Don’t_.” His voice is the raw as the pain on his face. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”

“Then _show_ me,” she pleads. “I still love you and want you and need you, and I cannot fathom how we’ll heal from this but I need to _try_ , and I can’t do that if you don’t let me!”

He pinches his eyes shut. At least he’s not running away. “I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“Pain is the price you pay for being vulnerable to love,” she says carefully. “I’ll get hurt. But not by you. Never by you.”

He probably thinks it’s a platitude, that she’s saying what she thinks he needs to hear. If only he could feel the depth of the truth for her. In the same way that he never hesitates to do something reckless to save her life, she knows with absolute certainty that their tragedies come from outside of them.

Fitz shakes his head.  But he doesn’t protest, and she feels his resistance eroding.

“I miss you,” she whispers.

He is silent a long time.

Then he looks up, eyes red-rimmed.

“I’m here,” he chokes out.

She steps up to him and takes him in her arms so that his head is pillowed against her stomach, and he not only lets her, but he embraces her in turn. There is still a chasm between them, but if there is one thing they are good at it, it is crossing impossible distances to find their way back.


End file.
